Cover Story
by Position of Trust
Summary: AU. Harry Potter's brother stopped Voldemort's Killing Curse, but tragedy strikes and the Prophecy lies in ruins. Unless Harry is prepared to live a lie in order to save the world... Slytherin!Harry


_Disclaimer: I don't claim to own the characters I use for this story, or even the tweaks I have made to them in the name of "AU". On that note, do remember that it is AU, and therefore the characters aren't going to react to things in the way perhaps you think they ought. I am, however, trying to keep the characters true to themselves – that is to say, if the events that I set out in this plot had happened, this would be how those characters would have behaved._

_Author's Notes: This story was inspired by a challenge from my "beta", **Alicia**, or Incarnadine as she is called on this site. Unsurprisingly, the spelling, punctuation, grammar and general accuracy and "flow" of this chapter and (hopefully) the entire text will be due to her sterling work as a beta-reader._

_This is **Part I** of a "quadrilogy" or four-part series, anticipated to cover Harry's first two years at school. The prologue is set in 1988, Chapter 1 on September 1, 1991, and the rest of the chapters follow on in chronological order. As the present plan stands, this story will most probably turn out to be SLASH, which will please Alicia inordinately, but might upset a few of the squeamish among you. So, heed my warning, and don't read if you can't handle it._

"_Cliché concepts":__ (for Alicia's challenge) Harry's-brother-is-the-Boy-Who-Lived; Slytherin!Harry._

_Warning: Violence, multiple character deaths (often without warning), mild language, SLASH._

_oOo_

_**FALSE COLOURS**_

_**BOOK ONE: COVER STORY**_

_oOo_

_Prologue_

The search had been going for three days by the time they found him. By that time, despite the size of the search area, they had mostly given up hope of finding him alive. Any hopes any of them might have had were dashed anyway when they came to a deep, flooded ditch some twenty miles away from their start site, the child's home. One of the search dogs let out a frantic, ear-splitting, heart-rending howl and slid down the steep side of the ditch to nose a small, huddled figure at the bottom, half in and half out of the water.

He lay very still, frighteningly still, arms crossed over and face buried in the crook of one elbow. Someone whistled and the dog came back at once, whimpering to itself as it ran. The leader of the search team had a closer look. The air was as cold as it had been every day for the last twelve days. The body was frozen, stone-cold; obviously dead. In such a position, in such a bolthole, hypothermia would have been not so much likely as inevitable. Which was odd; the child was eight years old and supposedly intelligent – why on earth would he have willingly lain down in a freezing, damp, muddy ditch?

The man holding the dog's collar said, 'How long's he been dead?' He hadn't had to look to know – the chief's immobility told the others all they needed to know – that they had come _too late_.

'Thirty-six hours at least,' he replied, sadly. 'We'd never have found him in time.' The team's paramedic started forwards, but the leader waved him back. 'Leave him until the police get here,' he said, warningly, ignoring the looks of disbelief. 'This looks much more like murder than accident. This is the sort of place a killer might dump a body, not the sort of place that a live child would go to shelter.' No one protested. There was not a man amongst them who had not seen the body of a murdered child. It was something that happened – something that none of them liked, but that had to be accepted as _real_.

'Somehow I don't think his mother will be surprised,' one of the younger men said. 'Paranoid as anything. She was sure that he'd been taken by someone. If you're right, maybe he was. I just put her down as neurotic. Making herself more important than she really is. Why'd anyone want to steal a perfectly ordinary eight-year-old boy? But maybe someone had been hanging around her house, watching the child, and she remembered it later.'

The medic sighed. 'I'm just hoping that this isn't the start of another spate of child killings,' he said. 'We can do without _this_ sort of brutality around here.'

'I think we could do without it _anywhere_,' said the team leader, meaningfully, reaching for a walkie-talkie to contact the police.

_­oOo_

When she heard the news, Lily wondered if she would burn in hell for her callousness, because her first reaction had been anger rather than sorrow. He was dead. Her son was dead. _The wrong son_ was dead. No – she couldn't have thought that last part. No mother would wish death on any of her children. And yet, had the other twin died, there would have been far fewer complications. Harry wasn't… he wasn't _important_, not in the same way his brother was – or had been, before, when he was alive. That _sounded_ wrong; he shouldn't be dead now. Will had survived the Killing Curse – how could he have succumbed to hypothermia?

The simple answer to that was that he hadn't. He'd been murdered, as surely as his father had been murdered, and for the same reason. Will had stood between Dark wizards and their chance of power, and so he had died. It was no good saying that to the search party or the police – they were not wizards, and could have no idea of the many ways that magical people could kill each other. Will might have been poisoned by something that Muggles could not detect; he might have been hit by any number of unpleasant but undetectable curses. The only reason she had not involved the magical community in the search was because she _did not want them to know_.

But now that Will was dead, they would have to know. It was inevitable. Their saviour was gone – she could hide his disappearance, but she could not hide his death. It was over. It was all over. As far as Lily was concerned, now that this blow had been struck, they might all just as well lie down and wait for the Dark to take over. Now that Will was gone, now that the golden child had been destroyed, the people would panic. In the minds of the wizarding community, nothing was left to stand between them and the Death Eaters in their quest to resurrect their master.

'What's happened, Mum?' It was Harry. Lily turned to face him, anger and loathing in her heart. It wasn't _fair_! Harry didn't matter, and yet he was left behind, alive, while his brother, who had had such a great and terrible destiny ahead of him, had died. Green eyes met green and Harry took a pace backwards, frightened by her expression. Perhaps he mistook it for grief, because he said, in a very small voice, 'They haven't found him?'

Angrily, she snapped, 'They have found him. They've found him _dead_.' And such was her hatred at that moment that she barely cared at all about softening what must surely come as a blow to the child. She watched without compassion or pity as he cried, thinking that tears were no good – they would not restore the dead to life, they would not change the fact that his brother was gone and their world was lost. She hated him for being _able_ to cry, for being able to mourn Will properly, without worrying about the implications of his death.

He looked up at her, tears streaming down his face. 'He was killed, wasn't he?' he asked, horrified but certain. Lily was so surprised that he had realised this that she forgot to be angry. 'They got him at last. It's not _fair_.' So he realised that as well. Not fair. Will was a hero, and heroes didn't die. Harry knew his bedtime stories as well as she did. She felt the momentary hatred for her elder son ebb away, and was instantly ashamed of having felt it. How could she have wished Harry dead? She enveloped him in a hug and let him sob against her chest, wishing that she could cry as well.

'No one knows, sweet,' she said, softly. 'The Muggle doctor said it was hypothermia.' Harry looked at her, puzzled. 'He froze,' she explained. 'But equally it could've been a potion or a spell.'

'Why didn't you tell anyone who could help?' he asked, sniffling. And now that her son was dead, Lily had to wonder. Was the threat of publicity that bad? Would Will be alive now if she had informed the proper magical authorities? She thought not. He had most likely been dead mere hours after he'd been taken. No one alive could have found him that quickly. But she still blamed herself. She wouldn't be human if she didn't blame herself. Did Harry blame her? There wasn't any blame in his eyes – eyes so similar to hers – only sorrow mixed with curiosity. He trusted her. He expected her to have a good reason. But did she?

She sighed. 'I didn't want anyone to panic,' she said, with a heavy heart. 'The country would've been in chaos if they'd known that their saviour, their famous Boy-Who-Lived, was missing. There'd have been hysteria. Everyone would have assumed the worst from the start.'

'The worst's happened now, though, hasn't it?' Harry asked, fearfully. 'My brother's _dead_.' And he cried again. Lily watched his face, so like Will's – the twins were identical, after all – feeling as if she was looking at a ghost. The only way that they had ever been different was that Will had the scar and Harry didn't. And it was then, while she was looking at him and thinking that thought, that she had the Idea. At first she recoiled from the very thought. She _couldn't_ do such a thing; it wouldn't be right. But it took hold in her mind. It was a good idea. No one need know what had happened. No one need worry.

Lily tried to smile, but she was sure that she must look horrible. 'Yes, but you're alive.' He frowned at her, his unmarked brow furrowed. 'Harry, love, you know you look just like Will, don't you?' He nodded, warily. 'And because we've always kept to ourselves, very few people _know_ that there are two of you.' She took a deep breath. 'So if we said that you were Will, who would know the difference? You could be him. The world _needs_ Will, and that's not changed just because he's dead.' She crouched down in front of her son, looking him straight in the eye. 'Harry, without Will, the world will _die_. The evil wizards will take over. The good people need their hero.'

Harry stared at her, bug-eyed. 'They need _Will_,' he said, flatly. 'They don't need me. _No one_ needs me.'

'Oh, Harry, my sweet, they _do _need you,' said Lily, softly. 'They just don't know it. They think that the only person who can save them is Will, but that's not true. _You _can do it. There's part of Will inside you. You could do it anyway, but they'll only let you if they think you're him.' Harry looked dubious. 'We have to do this. It's the only way the world can be saved. And you do want to be a hero, don't you, Harry? Like the knights in the old stories I used to tell you.'

'And all I have to do is pretend to be Will,' he added, darkly. 'All I have to do is pretend that _I_ never existed.'

Lily tried to remain calm. 'No,' she said, breathlessly. 'You don't have to pretend. You have to _be_ Will, really _be_ him. Everyone has to believe you, or the game's up. And you can be _you_, still, just with a different name, that's all. No one knows either of you, really. Why shouldn't your name be Will?' He stared at her in amazement for a few seconds, and then, finally, nodded. Relieved, she said, 'You really are your father's son. He'd have been proud.' Harry smiled. Lily decided to get the unpleasantness out of the way as soon as possible. 'There is one thing. The scar. Everyone knows about that. You'll have to have a scar if anyone's to believe you.'

Palpably afraid, Harry said, in a small voice, 'How are you going to give me a scar? You won't… you won't cast _that_ Curse at me, will you?'

'Of course not!' Lily cried, horrified. 'I wouldn't! I'll do it with a knife and a charm, and it won't hurt much. But it has to be done, Harry, really it does. If you don't have a scar, everything is lost. No salvation for the good wizards everywhere.'

Harry grimaced. 'All it takes is one cut, and it's as if my brother never existed,' he said, grimly. 'But it's all to save the world.'

'You can tell people that you had a brother, who died,' Lily pointed out. 'Only you're Will. Harry is dead, now; the other twin, the Boy-Who-Lived, the famous defeater of Dark wizards is still alive.' Harry's bottom lip quivered, perhaps at being told that he had died. Lily said, softly, 'I wish it didn't have to be this way, Harry, I really do. But you know that it _does_, don't you?'

Slowly, sadly, but determinedly, Harry nodded his head. 'Yes,' he said, stonily. 'Yes. I know it has to be this way. We must do… whatever we have to do.' And Lily was so proud of him at that moment that she could have kissed him. Instead, she stroked his hair – so like his father's – and then went into the kitchen to fetch the knife.

_o O o_

_Read, review, make me happy! Flames tolerated but by no means encouraged; constructive criticism and praise preferred. _


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